Developed in partnership with carbon credits startup Veridium Labs Ltd., the "verde" token will be issued on the Stellar blockchain, and are created to give enterprises that pollute the environment a way to offset that damage by supporting a patch of Indonesian rainforest.

According to a report on May 15, 2018, Veridium Labs, a carbon credit company, and IBM have entered a partnership that will see a unique "carbon credits" token developed on the Stellarblockchain.

For the uninitiated, carbon credits are a kind of "permit" that allows an organization or country to produce a certain amount of carbon each year. One credit is the equivalent to a one ton mass of carbon dioxide.

The idea of this partnership is to tokenize carbon credits which will enable pollution-heavy companies to offset the harm that they cause to the environment while carrying out their operations. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced their carbon credit proposal as a market-oriented mechanism to slow worldwide carbon emissions.

The initiative will automate "the entire complex process of carbon accounting and offsetting into a solution that can be seamlessly integrated into enterprise and consumer transactions using blockchain technology", per Veridium Labs.

For a long time, Veridium Labs has been struggling to crack the question of how to trade carbon offset credits in an open market.

IBM will use Stellar for first crypto token on public blockchain

While carbon credits in their own right are not new, the process of tracking the full extent of one's pollution, then providing assurance that the money was actually used to replenish the environment is both time-consuming and opaque. This is a sister company of Veridium Labs which counts PwC and Microsoft among its customers.

The verde tokens will be backed by a company called InfiniteEarth. The company ha snot explained why it switched over, although the faster transaction times and lower transaction costs of the Stellar network are likely factors.

"Veridium's collaboration with IBM not only transforms the carbon markets, but also creates an economically sustainable funding source for conservation through a results-based payments model - a good first step towards the new 'regenerative economy.'"

IBM, or International Business Machines, is a multinational technology company from NY.

The project shall be led by Jared Klee, IBM's blockchain manager, who adds the use-case can open a larger, more vibrant market that understands and realizes the potential of blockchain technology. Called the 'cryptographic anchor, ' it could be "embedded into products, or parts of products, and linked to the blockchain". The tokens would be made available on the Stellar blockchain. Ripple is also far more centralised than Stellar.